Part A :

OK, Greg, so I finally managed to read the article you mentioned - the one about the study on gender in physics.

丽莎：好的，格雷戈，所以我终于可以读你提到的那篇文章了--关于物理性别的研究．

About the study of college students done by Akira Miyake and his team?

关于Akira Miyake和他的团队针对大学生所做的研究．

Yeah.

是啊，

I was interested that the researchers were actually a mix of psychologists and physicists.

我感兴趣的是，研究人员实际上是一个心理学家和物理学家的混合团队．

That's an unusual combination.

这是一个不寻常的组合．

Yeah. I got a little confused at first about which students the study was based on.

是啊．刚开始我感到困惑的是，这个研究是基于哪些学生的．

They weren't actually majoring in physics - they were majoring in what's known as the STEM disciplines.

他们实际上并不是物理专业，他们主修的是STEM学科．

That's science, technology, engineering and...and math.

这是科学、技术、工程和……和数学．

Yes, but they were all doing physics courses as part of their studies.

是的，但物理课程都是他们学习的一部分．

That's correct. So as I understood it, Miyake and co started from the fact that women are underrepresented in introductory physics courses at college, and also that on average, the women who do enrol on these courses perform more poorly than the men.

对的．所以我的理解是，Miyake和co基于这样的事实展开研究：在大学物理学的入门课程中女性代表人数偏少，而且通常报读这些课程的女性成绩比男性差．

No one really knows why this is the case.

没有人真的知道为什么是这种情况．

Yeah. But what the researchers wanted to find out was basically what they could do about the relatively low level of the women's results.

是啊．但研究者们想发现的是，针对女性较差的水平，他们可以做一些什么．

But in order to find a solution they needed to find out more about the nature of the problem.

但是为了找到一个解决问题的办法，他们需要更多地了解问题的本质．

Right - now let's see if I can remember... it was that in the physics class, the female students thought the male students all assumed that women weren't any good at physics... was that it?

现在让我们看看我是否能想起来…在物理课上，女学生认为男学生都认为女性不擅长物理…是吗．

And they thought that the men expected them to get poor results in their tests.

他们认为，人们期望他们在考试中得到较差的结果．

That's what the women thought, and that made them nervous, so they did get poor results.

这是女人们所想的，这让她们很紧张，所以她们的成绩很差．

But actually they were wrong...

但事实上她们错了……

No one was making any assumptions about the female students at all.

没有人对女学生做任何假设．

Anyway, what Miyake's team did was quite simple - getting the students to do some writing before they went into the physics class.

反正Miyake团队所做的事情很简单--让学生走进物理课之前完成一些写作．

What did they call it?

他们称之为什么呢?

Values-affirmation - they had to write an essay focusing on things that were significant to them, not particularly to do with the subject they were studying, but more general things like music, or people who mattered to them.

价值观肯定--他们不得不写一篇文章，写的是对那些对他们有意义的事情，而不是特别关注他们学习的科目，而是更一般的事情，比如音乐，或者对他们来说很重要的人．

Right. So the idea of doing the writing is that this gets the students thinking in a positive way.

对．因此，写作的主意是为了让学生以积极的方式思考．

And putting these thoughts into words can relax them and help them overcome the psychological factors that lead to poor performance.

把这些想法用语言表达，可以使他们放松，帮助他们克服导致不良表现的心理因素．

Yeah.

好的．

But what the researchers in the study hadn't expected was that this one activity raised the women's physics grades from the C to the B range.

但是，研究人员在这项研究中没有想到的是，这一活动提将女性的物理成绩从C提高到了B的范围．

A huge change.

一个巨大的变化．

Pity it wasn't to an A, but still!

虽然它不是一个A，但仍然(是很大的变化)．

No, but it does suggest that the women were seriously underperforming beforehand, in comparison with the men.

不，但它确实表明，之前女性和男性作比较时，真的表现不佳．

Yes. Mind you, Miyake's article left out a lot of details.

是的．注意，Miyake的文章漏掉了很多细节．

Like, did the students do the writing just once, or several times?

像，学生只写一次，还是几次?

And had they been told why they were doing the writing?

还有他们是否被告知他们为什么要写这文章?

That might have affected the results.

这可能会影响到结果．

You mean, if they know the researchers thought it might help them to improve, then they'd just try to fulfil that expectation?

你的意思是，如果他们知道研究人员认为这可能有助于他们提高，那么他们只是试图实现这一预期．

Exactly.

正是如此．

Part B :

So anyway, I thought for our project we could do a similar study, but investigate whether it really was the writing activity that had that result.

所以不管怎样，我想我们的项目，我们可以做一个类似的研究，但调查是否真的是写作活动导致这样的结果．

OK. So we could ask them to do a writing task about something completely different... something more factual?

好的．所以我们可以要求他们写一些完全不同的东西……更实际的．

Like a general knowledge topic.

像一个一般的知识主题．

Maybe... or we could have half the students doing a writing task and half doing something else, like an oral task.

也许…或者我们可以让一半的学生完成写作任务，一半做其他的事情，比如一个口头的任务．

Or even, half do the same writing task as in the original search and half do a factual writing task.

甚至，一半做和原来的研究同样的写作任务，一半做一个真实的写作任务．

Then we'd see if it really is the topic that made the difference, or something else.

然后，我们会看到，是否真的是的主题使差异产生，还是其他的．

That's it.

就是这样．

Good. So at our meeting with the supervisor on Monday we can tell him we've decided on our project.

太好了．所以在星期一与主管的会议上，我们可以告诉他我们已经决定了我们的计划．

We should have our aims ready by then.

到那时候我们应该确立好我们的目标．

I suppose we need to read the original study - the article's just a summary.

我想我们需要读一读原始的研究报告，这篇文章只是一个概要．

And there was another article I read, by Smolinsky.

我还读了思马灵斯基的另一篇文章．

It was about her research on how women and men perform in mixed teams in class, compared with single-sex teams and on their own.

这是关于她关于女性在男女混合小组以及单一性别小组中表现对比的研究．

Let me guess... the women were better at teamwork.

让我猜猜…女性在团队合作中表现更好．

That's what I expected, but actually the men and the women got the same results whether they were working in teams or on their own.

这是我所期望的，但事实上，无论他们是在团队中或是他们自己，的男性和女性得到了相同的结果．

But I guess it's not that relevant to us.

但我想这并不与我们有关．

What worries me anyway is how we're going to get everything done in the time.

我担心的是，我们将如何在时间内完成所有的事情．

We'll be OK now we know what we're doing.

现在我们知道我们在做什么．

Though I'm not clear how we assess whether the students in our experiment actually make any progress or not...

虽然我不清楚我们如何评估学生在我们的实验中，是否取得任何进展…

No. We may need some advice on that.

不．我们可能需要一些建议．

The main thing's to make sure we have the right size sample, not too big or too small.

主要是要确保我们有合适的样本量，不能太大或太小．

That shouldn't be difficult.

那应该不难．

Right, what do we need to do next? We could have a look at the timetable for the science classes... or perhaps we should just make an appointment to see one of the science professors.

是的，接下来我们需要做什么?我们可以看一下科学课程的课程表…或许我们应该预约会见一位科学教授．

That'd be better.

那会更好．

Great.

太好了．

And we could even get to observe one of the classes.

我们甚至可以去观察一个班级．

What for?

为什么?

Well... OK maybe let's just go with your idea.

好…好吧，也许我们应该依照你的想法走．

Right, well...

好的…